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Allegations of "politicization" - refuted.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, in its unanimous "Phase I" report, said:
"Conclusion 11. Several of the allegations of pressure on Intelligence Community analysts involved repeated questioning.
The Committee believes that IC analysts should expect difficult and repeated questions regarding threat information.
Just as the post 9/11 environment lowered the Intelligence Community's reporting threshold, it has also affected the
intensity with which policymakers will review and question threat information." 1
Some of those interviewed said that "the questions had forced them to go back and review the intelligence reporting,
and that during this exercise they came across information they had overlooked in initial readings.
2
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"The Committee found that this process - the policymakers probing questions - actually improved the [CIA's] products."
3
"While analysts cannot dismiss a threat because at first glance it seems unreasonable or it cannot be corroborated by other credible reporting, policymakers have the
ultimate responsibility for making decisions based on this same fragmentary, inconclusive reporting. If policymakers did not
respond to analysts' caveated judgments with pointed, probing questions, and did not require them to produce the most complete
assessments possible, they would not be doing their jobs." 4
The Committee was not presented with any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments [regarding Iraqi
WMD capabilities] as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with Administration
policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to do so. When asked whether analysts were
pressured in any way . . . not a single analyst answered yes. Most analysts simply answered, "no" or "never" . . ." 5
"Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence
or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities." 6
"Conclusion 102. The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they
were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq's links to terrorism."
7
The Silberman-Robb WMD Commission, in its unanimous report, said:
"[A]nalysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their
analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than
political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments." 8
"The Commission has found no evidence of 'politicization' of the Intelligence Community's assessments concerning Iraq's
reported WMD programs. No analytical judgments were changed in response to political pressure to reach a particular
conclusion. The Commission has investigated this issue closely, querying in detail those analysts involved in
formulating pre-war judgments about Iraq's WMD programs." 9
"The Commission also found no evidence of 'politicization' even under the broader definition used by the CIA's
Ombudsman for Politicization, which is not limited solely to the case in which a policymaker applies overt pressure
on an analyst to change an assessment." 10
"According to some analysts, senior decision makers continually probed to assess the strength of the Intelligence
Community's analysis, but did not press for changes in the Intelligence Community's analytical judgments. We conclude that
good-faith efforts by intelligence consumers to understand the bases for analytic judgments, far from constituting
"politicization," are entirely legitimate. This is the case even if policymakers raise questions because they do not
like the conclusions or are seeking evidence to support policy preferences. Those who must use intelligence are entitled
to insist that they be fully informed as to both the evidence and the analysis." 11
"We urge that policymakers actively probe and question analysts. ...[S]uch interaction is not 'politicization.' Analysts
should expect such demanding and aggressive testing without - as a matter of principal and professionalism - allowing it
to subvert their judgment." 12
1Ibid., p. 34 (emphasis in original).
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
4Ibid., p. 35.
5Ibid., p. 273.
6Ibid., p. 284 (emphasis in original).
7Ibid., p. 363 (emphasis in original).
8Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
[Silberman-Robb Commission], Report to the President of the United States, March 31, 2005, p. 51.
9Ibid., p. 188.
10Ibid.
11Ibid., p. 189.
12Ibid., p. 27.
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